[asn32] Re: Fwd: Re: RPSL support for 32 bit ASN

Hi Larry,

> >    There was considerable discussion during the development of the
> >RPSLng spec (RFC4012) concerning modifying the syntax for existing 
> >attributes.
> >The consensus was that this approach should not be taken and that
> >new attributes should be created wherever an IPv6 address could
> >appear so as not to break existing tools.
> >draft-uijterwaal-rpsl-4bytesas-ext-00.txt
> >appears to have abandoned this approach.
> 
> That is correct.  I looked at the problem and creating new attributes for
> ASN32 would cause the number of attributes to expand as N^2.  In other
> words, for each kind of attribute, there would be a version for IPv4-ASN16,
> IPv6-ASN16, IPv4-ASN32 and IPv6-ASN32.  If something else is changed in
> the future, this will result in 8 versions of essentially the same
> attribute.  This does not look very attractive to me.

<skip>

I support Henk in this. To strictly follow the RPSL extention
guidelines, one has to add 12 new attributes to existing objects 
and 7 new classes (with total of 30+ new attributes) to accept 32bit
ASn.

Following RPSL extention guidelines where possible is good,
but I think here alternative approach is justified.

-- 
Katie Petrusha
RIPE NCC